Repetition and the Art of Writing Novels

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we wish to analyze how Kierkegaard understood the art of writing novels, that is, as a way to express and develop the life-view of the author. We would like to argue that this notion, presented for the first time in From the Papers of One Still Living (1838), was put into practice in the short novel Repetition (1843), in which Kierkegaard used the biblical story of Job to explain the development of selfhood through the existential category of repetition. According to Kierkegaard, true repetition—which is the central category of the life-view he is trying to convey—helps the individual “recollect” the past correctly so he or she can reconcile with the present and grow into the future.